I have but decided that if I was going to have to carry a shell glove/mitt it might as well be waterproof (and windproof) so my thin gloves might as well just be fleece.
I wanted to try a softshell glove so that I only needed 1 glove, one which would be warm, wind resistant, water resistant and allow some dexterity, I could well be wrong here and completely missing the point but I understood that the principal of softshell was that it reduced the amount of layers needed, doesn't carrying a shell glove make softshell gloves somewhat pointless?
My hands were really cold after stopping for lunch but after about 20mins steady uphill they warmed up again (with a fair bit of pain 1st)
sod that!
When cold weather walking - Buffalo Mitts for me (sometimes with liners)- I can work my camera OK and use zip pulls/pack buckles with them on If they get really wet, just squeeze the water out.
Would like a pair of tuff- bag type w/p mitts. But £40 is a piss take considering you can often get paclite jackets for less than £100.
I like the look of the Outdoor Designs Kona Grip Convertables - fingerless gloves with flip over mitt - in Windbloc fleece - bound to be warmer than plain gloves.
For work, when cold and wet I use meraklon liners with either, industrial marigolds, or rubber grippa gloves (either the full surround ones or the type with the fabric back)
R-Mac - yup, I agree with you but since you had already purchased some gloves and they didn't sound like they were quite up to your requirements, an over-mitten might be what you need (as a combo with your current gloves).
Mole and I certainly agree on Buffalo mitts - even though your hands will get wet in continuous rain, they'll stay warm. It's the fine dexterity issue that I have no experience of though Mole has stated that he finds camera work in them okay (also I seem to remember that on the Buffalo website there's at least one letter from a cameraman who finds them fine for dexterous work).
Plain rubber gloves and liners had crossed my mind, if you need waterproof then there's not much if anything to beat them, I'm not sure that waterproof gloves need to be breathable anyway to be honest. Buffalo mitts would be a good option but not with a DSLR unless you can get trigger finger Buffalo mitts.
I looked at the Tuff Bags myself but came to much the same conclusion as yourself and in any case my waterproof gloves are unlined Marmots. I have a pair of Wintergear 3 piece (2 piece not counting the liner glove) mitts that belonged to my Dad, I'll have to dig them out. Of course thats getting away from the original idea of 1 pair does all gloves.
i#ve got some rab phantom grip, worn them a couple of times when setting up a hang glider, and they are suprisngly windproof and warm, and with good water resistance (but not waterproof obviously). The silicon grip section is VERY grippy, and overall i'm impressed , but not used them when flying yet so cant comment on what they're like in really cold windy weather.
The only problem is the cuffs are wide and daft. There's no narrowing of the material when they come up your wrist, so if you have thin wrists the fabric just kind of hangs round them , not doing a lot and quite frankly getting in the way. Oh, and the label is ITCHY ! its going to be cut off soon.
Great gloves, crap cuffs.
Oh, and go for a size smaller than you need when buying these if you want dexterity.
I just tried a quick test to compare the ME G2 Lites with the Mountain Warehouse Wind proof fleece gloves. I wore one of each and wiped the snow off the greenhouse roof.
G2 lite - wet inside, cold and damp
Windproof Fleece - dry and warm
The fleece ones are warmer generally. I wanted to try Softshell gloves as I hoped they'd be more water resistant and warmer than a fleece glove, that doesn't seem to be the case having tried 2 different types of Softshell glove. From now on it'll be the windproof fleece gloves and a shell glove/mitt if I need something waterproof.
Lately I have been wearing Outdoor Designs Base layer polartec gloves and Terra Nova Windy Lites Winstopper gloves over the top(have 2 pairs I can rotate)
If its raining I will problay stick a paclite mitt over them, if its below zero I would be adding Outdoor Designs Mckinley gauntlet, also have a pair Outdoor designs inferno mitts for if stationary.
No such thing IME, and I've tried a few. So what I do these days is take a selection. One thing I've found is that once gloves are wet inside and you stop, unless they're designed for Serious Toasting (i.e., dachmitts) then they won't warm up,at least with the heat output from my hands (I seem to tend to get cold hands, though of course I can't compare how mine feel compared to someone else, hence "seem to"), so a dry pair from the collection solves that.
I variously use thin Powerstretch gloves as a basic not-too-cold glove, past that there are thin windproof fleece ones (though I don't like windproof fleeces for jackets and trews, forgloves I think they've got a real place as long as it's not really raining hard, when they're ultra-slow dry makes them a liability) and then some thicker mostly windproof ones that have more insulation bulk. Past those are the ME Randonees and then there's the double-mitts with a waterproof shell and long wrists. I won't always have the lot but if it's cold and potentially wet I'll probably have several of them. 3 or 4 pairs including the monsters if I was off for a week's skiing in Norway.
The Randonees seem to be the closest to a "one does all", but they're a bit over the top for a lot of uses. That's an inevitable problem of one-does-all.
Thats the conclusion I've come to Peter, I suffer from cold hands too but in most cases if it isn't actually raining my windproof fleece gloves have been fine. I tended to carry 2 pairs in case one pair got wet handling rocks etc but really wondered if softshell would be more water resistant than fleece as it's marketed thus to a degree which would have allowed me to simply carry one pair. As it turned out it didn't quite work but what surprised me was that the G2 Lites were worse than the Mountain Warehouse windproof fleece gloves with regard to insulation and water resistance, I can't say for sure which offer the most wind resistance but suspect there isn't much in it.
Looking closely at my fleece gloves they're quite a dense fabric, not disimilar to Karisma but with a bit more stretch yet still not bulky.
The Randonees certainly look more capable but as you rightly point out the better the performance at the extreme end of the scale the more overkill they are when conditions are less severe.
I've used the Randonees as my gloves of choice for the school run lately, which has been heavy frosts (so below zero) and down a big hill on the bike so windchill straight onto my hands at ~30 mph while I'm doing no work with my arms. And they're fine for that, which is a pretty stern test.
Don't forget windproof fleece is soft-shell and is remarkably water-resistant. The membrane is either waterproof or pretty close to it and it's typically the case that they'll only leak through the seams. The Gotchas are that gloves have loads of seams and once they do get wet through they take 1001 years to dry and are at an apparent 3 degrees K in the process...
I think the seams were where I was getting the water coming through on the G2 Lites, talking of bikes I used to wear a gore windstopper gilet which was good in showers and even sustained light rain. It goes without saying that there was less condensation problems than a clear plastic rain jacket although the plastic jacket was warm enough while on the move (virtual sauna).
> though I don't like windproof fleeces for jackets and trews, forgloves I think they've got a real place as long as it's not really raining hard
I agree. My favourite gloves are a pair of Polaris Wind-Grip gloves, in Windstopper, with an Amara palm. Sadly, I ripped the fingers up whilst climbing on a bitter day at Stanage. They're 9 years old now, and much used fro cycling and walking. I'd love to get another pair, but Polaris dropped them long ago. I thought I'd found some old stock a couple of years ago, but they had changed to another fabric, and lengthened the fingers at the same time, so, reluctantly, they had to go back.
I have dozens of pairs of gloves (Raynaud's, you see), and those are the gloves I generally turn to. I'll be gutted when they finally bite the dust. So much so thatI'm tempted to get some suede and try to repair the fingers...
Have you read Andy Kirkpatrick's article on gloves - it on his website somewhere. One of his points was that gloves will always get wet, if only because there is a great big hole where your hand goes in. So the trick is managing the water rather than keeping it out. As such, membrane gloves are a potential liability. Having said that, I have 2 pairs of softshell gloves, one pair of which is insulated with primaloft or something like (made by manzella), and the other is just lined with tricot. The tricot line pair (outdoor research stormtracker) are probably too cold for icy weather but are very dextrous. The primaloft pair are very very warm when dry, but when wet, such as after using them to build (ahem) snowmen, then they are obviously not so good - not disasterously cold, but not great either. And as noted by others, they take ages to dry even on a radiator. In the past I have used simple woolen gloves to good effect - they seem to lose less insulation even when caked in snow, or possibly I didn't notice the cold because my finger tips had gone numb...
Another point is that I find my fingers really suffer from lack of circulation in gloves even if the gloves dont seem to be that tight i.e. when I don the gloves my palms get warmer but my fingers become even more uncomfortable. As a result I tend to order a size up. Unfortunately this does not help dexterity.
My last point is stating the bleeding obvious: that pockets and sleeves are great - if your sleeve can hang down over most of your (gloved) hand (just your fingers protruding) then that can really make a huge difference. Actually I have though about making sleeve extensions just for this job - sort of like an insulated gaiter for your hand.
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sod that!
If they get really wet, just squeeze the water out. 
